Britain swelters as record temperatures reached for second day in a row

BRITAIN'S record for the hottest winter day has been broken for the second successive day.

Temperatures reached 70F (21.2C) at Kew Gardens in west London where visitors enjoyed ice-creams and enjoyed the grounds where spring flowers have bloomed early. People basked in the sunshine in much of the country and a new Welsh record was set in the seaside town of Porthmadog, Gwynedd, which saw the mercury hit 69.4F - a full 10 degrees hotter than Malibu Beach in California. In the capital, city workers enjoyed lunch in St James's Park amid a host of golden daffodils. The sun-kissed scenes were a marked difference from last February when the Beast from the East had just roared in from Siberia, battering our shores with blizzards.

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However, the dry conditions caused fires to tear through woodland best known as the setting for A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh.

Fire crews were called to Ashdown Forest in East Sussex where smoke was billowing from "Hundred AcreWood" in the book.

Forecasters said that the unseasonably warm weather, which saw a high of 67.4F in Greenwich, south-east London on Monday, is thanks to warm air coming in from the Canary Islands, Morocco and southern Spain.

After a foggy start for some today the mild weather will continue with highs of up to 66F. However, by tomorrow rain will sweep in from the Atlantic, with temperatures dropping significantly towards the weekend.

Wildfires ravage through Ashdown Forest in East Sussex (Image: NC)

People enjoying the warm winter weather in Green Park, Central London (Image: Getty)

Sophie Yeomans, of the Met Office, said: "Looking ahead to Friday it will stay cloudy but by the weekend we see some weather systems coming through that will be wet and windy.

"There will be strong winds and heavy rain which is a shame for those who have the weekend off. We are definitely looking at a big change."

While the variability of weather makes it hard to link any single event to climate change, global warming is heating up the whole system and making extremes more likely, scientists say.

Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute at the LSE, said: "While warmer winters might seem pleasant for many people, it is worth remembering this is the result of a climate change trend that is also making heatwaves and heavy rainfall more frequent, as well as coastal flooding," he said.